Mayor’s office says Mon- Oakland road planning is inclusive

Pittsburgh Mayor Bill Peduto’s office said planning for a private road to shuttle workers between Hazelwood Green and Oakland has been transparent and inclusive. The response came after a protest march Sunday by opponents of the project.

The protesters, who marched from Oakland to Greenfield, said they had been left out of the loop in plans to build the MonOakland Connector, which they believe will degrade Schenley Park and spoil the character of their communities.

The proposed connector would follow what is now an overgrown road that once linked Panther Hollow and Junction Hollow, an area often called Four Mile Run or The Run. Protesters said they had little information about the nongovernmental entities intending to finance and operate the private road for driverless shuttle buses between Hazelwood Green and Oakland’s university and medical district.

Timothy McNulty, spokesman for Mr. Peduto, said the project has been “fully transparent.”

“The Peduto administration has long been taking public input on this project, holding four public meetings, six stakeholder meetings and one resident advisory meeting,” he said Monday. “Residents tell us better public transit is desperately needed in Hazelwood and Greenfield and Oakland, and we are set to deliver that, after first addressing stormwater concerns in the area.”

Mr. McNulty said information on the project is publicly available on the Mon- Oakland Mobility Project website at https:// mon- oaklandmobility. com. Click on “public engagement” for meeting details.

“We don’t know who would actually run the shuttle company, but it would be a private company,” said Ziggy Edwards, organizer of Sunday’s protest. “We filed two Right to Know requests, learned very little, and are continuing to do so to get more information.”

Carlino Giampolo, whose family’s roots in Panther Hollow date to the 1890s, said residents had been kept in the dark on key issues regarding the involvement of universities and foundations and the proposed project’s disruption of neighborhoods.

“The mayor is being disingenuous when he says the impact will be very little,” he said.

Protesters said the project would permanently degrade Schenley Park for the benefit of its nonprofit financiers. John Pepper, spokesman for Pittsburgh Parks Conservancy, a nonprofit organization that assists the city’s parks program, said the connector would address Four Mile Run flooding and be mindful of the landscape.

“As a partner in the overall project and member of the Pittsburgh Water and Sewer Authority project team, we regularly attend community meetings for both the mobility and stormwater design efforts and understand stakeholders’ concerns,” he said. “... We work hard to ensure that any improvements to our city’s parks are respectful of the park’s history and current use.”